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As Army’s Top Lawyer, Flora Darpino Is No Shrinking Violet

Flora Darpino learned as a little girl she would have to strive her hardest, just to be equal.

As she nears retirement from a 30-year career as a military lawyer, it’s clear that the lieutenant general took that lesson to heart. More than being equal, she became a shining example to female soldiers and the first woman in the nation’s 242-year history to serve as the judge advocate general of the U.S. Army.

Darpino, 56, said her drive to work her hardest stemmed from the prejudice she and her family faced as Italian-Americans living mainly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

“Every generation had to be better than the generation before them, and we always had to work harder and be better than people around us to be considered equal,” Darpino recalled that her father would say.